The invention concerns a filling machine comprising advanced cleaning means.
The invention specifically concerns machines that make it possible to fill hollow containers, such as bottles or pots with a product, for example, a food product.
Such machines generally comprise a rotating carousel that holds a series of filling spouts. The containers are mounted on the carousel at a given point on the circle that it describes, being arranged below a filling spout. Once the container is placed under the spout, the latter is filled with product in such a way that the product is poured into the inside of the container. When a desired degree of filling is achieved, the feed from the spout is interrupted by a valve installed in the feed circuit of the spout and the container is then removed from the carousel, it being understood that this is before the carousel has made a complete revolution.
The arrangement of the multiple spouts on a carousel makes it possible for the machine to insure the filing of a number of containers simultaneously. It makes it possible to insure filling a significant number of containers in a given period of time, in spite the fact that the filling is an operation that takes a relatively long time. In fact, it is especially necessary to prevent the product from foaming too, much which would lead to an only partial filling of the container or to a loss of product by overflow. A filling machine can thus contain more than one hundred spouts.
Naturally, the filling operation must be carried out while avoiding any contamination of the product. This is critical when the product is a food product and all the more so in the case of, for example, milk products.
Thus, it is necessary to carry out a cleaning of the filling machine at regular intervals, paying particular attention to a thorough cleaning of all the parts of the machine that are intended to come into contact with the product. It is also necessary to take care that the other parts of the machine that are near the product remain clean.
The cleaning can consist of removing all traces of the product, of removing dust and other foreign bodies with the intention of eliminating biological or bacteriological contaminants. In the sense of the present patent, the cleaning may thus include the concepts of washing, disinfecting, decontaminating and sterilizing.
The cleaning is usually carried out with a liquid or gaseous cleaning agent that is allowed to circulate in the circuit contacted by the product on the inside of the machine.
In order to limit the consumption of cleaning agent, and above all to facilitate its recovery with the intention of possible recycling, preferably the agent is allowed to circulate inside a closed circuit.
For this purpose, the method is known of equipping each spout of the filling machine with a moveable cup during a machine cleaning phase, which is brought into position on the corresponding spout. The cup is pressed onto the filling spout in a sealed manner and it is connected to a circuit for evacuation of the cleaning agent. Then, the cup essentially occupies the place of the container under the filling spout. Thus, it is possible to inject the cleaning agent in the feed circuit of the spout in such a way as to insure cleaning of the interior of the spout, of the valve and of the circuit.
However, these known devices do not make it possible to insure the cleaning except for the internal part of the filling spout which is in direct contact with the product. The parts in the immediate area, such as the external surfaces of the spout, are not reached by the cleaning agent.
Still, if impurities accumulate in the area of the spout, they are able, for example, to detach at the moment of filling and to come into contact with the product, and, for example, fall into the container. Thus it is necessary to provide means that make possible an efficient cleaning of the external parts of the spout.
In addition, if the machine has a carousel equipped with a significant number of spouts, it is interesting to provide a mobile structure which makes it possible to put in place all of the cleaning means corresponding to each spout. In the known device previously described, the cups are carried on a mobile structure which moves between a retracted position and a service position. This displacement is carried out in a direction parallel to the axis of rotation of the carousel, the structure retracting toward the bottom.
Still, taking into account this direction of displacement, the latter must travel a relatively great distance to entirely remove the volume necessary in the passage of the containers when the machine is in service. The amplitude of this displacement and the mass of the support structure for the cups thus require the provision of actuators that are themselves voluminous and heavy. Thus, all of the structure and the actuating means are an assembly that is particularly cumbersome so it is difficult to integrate them into the machine.
In addition, the weight and the space required of the assembly make it impossible to mount it on the carousel. This has thus led to mounting this assembly directly on the fixed stand of the machine that implies that the cups cannot follow the rotation of movement of the carousel. The cleaning phase can thus not be carried out unless the carousel is stopped.
This presents a double inconvenience. On one hand, it is thus necessary to provide precise angular indexing machines for the carousel to insure that, when the support structure of the cups is brought to its cleaning position, each of the spouts would be exactly in correspondence with one of the cups. On the other hand, the cleaning cannot be carried out in the course of the rotation of the carousel, certain parts of the feed circuit may not be completely clean. Thus, the circuit generally has a rotating distributor that makes it possible to transfer the product that is stored in a reservoir to each of the spouts carried on the carousel. Since the cleaning is carried out during a stop, it is difficult to guarantee complete cleaning of the distributor.
Thus a goal of the invention is to propose a new design of a filling machine which incorporates the cleaning means that make it possible to insure cleaning of the internal and external parts of the cleaning spout, these means needing to be simultaneously simple, reliable, not cumbersome and easy to place in operation, even in the case of where a machine has numerous spouts.
For this purpose, the invention proposes a filling machine of the type having at least one filling spout through which a product runs, the spout being intended to be placed across from the opening of a container to be filled, characterized in that the filling spout is surrounded by a fixed housing attached to a chassis which supports the spout, the housing having a passage orifice through which the spout is fitted, the housing comprising a mobile closing flap which, in a closed position, closes the orifice and closes the housing in a sealed manner and in that the machine has the means to make a cleaning agent circulate on the inside of the housing.
According to other characteristics of the invention:
the closing flap is controlled by actuating means between its closed position and an open position, in which the hole of the housing is open;
the actuating means of the flap comprise a double-action fluid pressure actuator;
the housing has a tubular shape, the orifice being arranged in a lateral wall of the housing and the closing flap comprises a tubular sleeve which slides on the housing along the axis of the latter;
at one rear axial end, the flap has a radial collar which slides in a sealed manner in a chamber delimited radially between two cylindrical walls and axially between two radial walls, the front radial wall being provided with an annular opening through which the sleeve of the flap slides in a sealed manner;
in a sealed manner, the collar separates two parts of the chamber, each of which can be connected selectively to a source of fluid under pressure to cause the displacement of the flap between its open or closed positions;
the flap is fitted radially on the outside of the housing;
the housing extends along a direction that is essentially perpendicular to the direction of flow of the product;
the cleaning agent is introduced into the housing by the filling spout;
the cleaning agent is evacuated through an auxiliary port which opens out into the interior of the housing;
the auxiliary port is fitted at a low point in the housing;
during filling, a sterile gas is injected into the housing and is evacuated across the orifice of the housing by surrounding the flow of the product between the filling spout and the container;
the sterile gas is injected into the housing through the auxiliary port;
the supply to the filling spout is controlled by a valve which is skewed with respect to the spout, the valve being connected to the spout by a feed pipe;
the valve is fitted below the filling spout;
the valve is fitted essentially below the container to be filled, the latter itself placed below the filling spout;
the spout is carried by a rotating carousel and the fixed housing is attached to the carousel; and
the machine has several filling spouts of which each is enclosed in a fixed housing provided with a mobile obturator that makes it possible to close the housing in a sealed manner.